Freemasons gave ‘ 2017 New Zealander of the Year’ his start!

A number of years ago Freemasons New Zealand sponsored the New Generation Awards with The Arts Foundation of New Zealand. Five Awards of $25,000 each to help up and coming artists in New Zealand to concentrate on their art without financial worries.

In the inaugural awards back in 2008 was Taika Waititi one of the awardees, the Film Director, with his Oscar nominated New Zealand Short Story Film ‘Two Cars, One Night’, who has since gone on to direct/produce a number of well-known films. This was featured in Issue 2, 2008 of the New Zealand Freemason magazine.

Freemasons will be pleased to know, that someone we helped fund all those years ago, has just taken out the top award in the 2017 as Kiwibank ‘New Zealander of Year’, which was presented by the Prime Minister Rt Hon Bill English.

The criteria for the Top Award is – “Their pursuit of excellence may be in the areas of – science, business, the arts, cultural or community involvement, sport, education and health – their achievements have positive effects on how we feel about our nation and ourselves”.

Freemasons New Zealand congratulates Taika Waititi on his achievement.

Some Freemasons mistakenly assumed it was The Freemasons Charity who sponsored the programme but it was Freemasons New Zealand itself.